The cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is on track to resume treating sodium-bearing liquid waste in March, but some fixes are still needed, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board update.
Jacobs-led Idaho Environmental Coalition finished a maintenance outage at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) in mid-January after starting it in September 2023. But some tasks that will not affect plant operations will wait until the next outage, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a staff report dated Feb. 2.
Startup checks done by the contractor revealed “that one 3-way valve in the product receiver cooler system was found to be missing,” according to the DNFSB report. Idaho Environmental Coalition staff said “that the valve was removed during the execution of a change to one of the product purge lines” to prevent clogs.
“A similar system connection incident occurred in March 2023, when gas lines to waste feed nozzles were installed backwards,” according to the DNFSB report. DNFSB staff plan to review corrective actions developed by the contractor.
The long-awaited IWTU started up in April 2023 after years of delay. It is designed to convert about 900,000 gallons of radioactive liquid sodium-bearing waste into a more stable granular form for storage and eventual disposal. So far, it has treated 68,000 gallons of the liquid waste.
Initially built in 2012 by a CH2M-led contractor, the IWTU for long did not work as planned. Over the ensuing decade, contractors Fluor Idaho and subsequently Idaho Environmental Coalition re-engineered and updated the plant.
